It is well known that due to the aging process, some unwanted brown spots appears in the skin of the hands and arms. The color of the spots is mainly caused by a production of melanin.
Several methods have been tested in order to reduce the appearance of such spots, with these methods including the application of a laser at various wavelengths.
Some results have been achieved, but no method is at the present time is particularly effective and also does not have unwanted side effects.
When laser light reaches the skin, its intensity decreases exponentially in the skin. This means that the thermal energy that is delivered is higher in the first layer of the skin, and decreases exponentially as it penetrates lower into the lower layers of the skin. Moreover, the first corneum stratus (an upper skin layer) has a higher absorption than other portions of the skin. Such an energy profile is not suitable for uniform heating of a volume of skin due to the fact that in the superficial layers the reached temperature is too high and in other layers the temperature is not enough in order to trigger the desired brown spot reduction process.
The present invention is related to a different method of heating a portion of skin using radio frequency current pulses.
It is well known that an alternating voltage applied to a conductor generates a current on the external layer of the conductor, and the depth of current flow depends on the frequency and the resistance of the conductor (skin effect).